--- description: Scandals of New York (Cont'd) After a year of skunk-flushing in New York City's political woods, Counsel Samuel Seabury of the Legislature's investigation into municipal corruption last... title: STATES & CITIES: Scandals of New York image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # STATES & CITIES: Scandals of New York (30 May 1932) by [TIME](/author/time/) May 30, 1932 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) May 30, 1932 4:00 AM CUT Scandals of New York (Cont’d) After a year of skunk-flushing in New York City’s political woods, Counsel Samuel Seabury of the Legislature’s investigation into municipal corruption last week bayed resoundingly on the trail of a fox. Never before had the chase come so close to slick little Mayor James John (“Jimmy”) Walker. Inquisitor Seabury first gave tongue last fortnight by revealing that the Mayor had been given $26,535 worth of bonds by a broker whom he had seen only once before but for whom it was in the Mayor’s power to do a potent favor. The broker’s name was Joseph A. Sisto. His firm issued the securities of Parmelee Transportation Co. which owns the city’s biggest taxi fleet (2,300 cars). Broker Sisto met the Mayor at Atlantic City in the summer of 1929\. The following autumn he sent his gift, made “in admiration,” around to the City Hall. Later he spoke to the Mayor of the need of municipal taxi regulation to curb low-rate “taxicab racketeers.” The next April Mayor Walker ordered an investigation, the next year pushed through legislation creating a Board of Taxicab Control. The Sisto revelation brought no immediate surge of public indignation against foxy Mayor Walker. The news of his bonds was juxtaposed with news of his Beer Parade, and pure chance sent also the discovery of the Lindbergh baby’s corpse. Besides, the New York public had waited months for the Mayor’s turn to come in an inquiry of which everyone realized the prosecution was as political as the defense. The public seemed interested not so much in what Mayor Walker had done—$26,535 seemed small potatoes indeed for a man of his parts—as in if and how he would elude punishment. After Inquisitor Seabury had further showed last week that the promoters of a bus company had bought Mayor Walker a $10,000 letter of credit, later extended by $3,000, for his junket to Europe in 1927, the chase approached its most exciting stage—Mayor Walker on the stand in his own defense. In preparation for the Mayor’s testimony this week, Inquisitor Seabury concentrated his investigation on State Senator John A. Hastings, a well-fed, acquisitive young Brocklynite who fought a losing battle all the way to the Court of Appeals to escape testifying. Seven years ago, aged 25, John A. Hastings was in the New York Senate when James J. Walker resolved to spring from that body into the New York mayoralty, “third biggest job in the U. S.” Clever and obliging, Senator Hastings made himself indispensable to Senator Walker, has stayed close to him ever since. As public men must if they are going to do private business on the side, Mayor Walker retained a financial agent, one Russell T. Sherwood, who left Manhattan early in the Seabury investigation. In his absence, and in the absence of the Mayor’s business records, the doings and dealings of Senator Hastings seemed the next best clues to what fun-loving Mayor Walker might have been doing for a living. Senator Hastings is a man of many interests. Until this month he served as a “gladhand man” at $10,000 a year under Barren Collier (car cards). Terminal Cab Corp. (General Motors subsidiary) gives him another $10,000 a year. He told Inquisitor Seabury last week that he had taken Mayor Walker over to Brooklyn early one Sunday morning to witness a feat of alchemy. A chemical company which Senator Hastings partly owned with Publisher Paul Block thought it had a way to manufacture gold out of baser metal. The alchemy did not work, but the company was happily discovered to have a tile which just suited the requirements of the Board of Transportation for use in the city’s subways. Inquisitor Seabury attempted to show how, in 1925, the Messrs. Hastings & Walker got into the Equitable Coach Co. deal, a grandiose but fruitless scheme to get a city franchise, start a bus line, swap stock and concessions with other municipal services and ultimately control the city’s entire privately-owned transit system. “A little syndicate” was formed with $282,000 worth of contributions from three members: Frank R. Fageol of Kent, Ohio, builder of motor coaches; his vice president Charles B. Rose (now president of America-La France & Foamite Corp.); President William O’Neil of General Tire & Rubber Co. Senator Hastings was put on the syndicate’s payroll for $1,000 a month, on General Tire’s payroll for another $1,000\. He was “loaned” $10,000, promised one-third ($700,000 worth) of Equitable’s common stock to dispose of as he liked. He was promised campaign contributions on the eve of the Walker election and so lavishly “entertained” that Entertainer J. Allan Smith was dropped from the syndicate. Throughout these dealings, which ended when the syndicate and Mayor Walker failed to get sufficient financial backing for the State Transit Commission to countenance the project, telegrams referred, apparently meaning Mayor Walker, to “John’s \[Senator Hastings’\] boy friend.” Last week it was also apparent that when the syndicate was passing around good things to those who could help it get a franchise, “Boy Friend” Walker was not forgotten. From the records of Equitable Trust Co. (not connected with the bus firm), Mr. Seabury produced evidence that in August, 1927, a fortnight after “Boy Friend” Walker had succeeded in getting a franchise for Equitable Coach Co., but a day before his signature made the franchise effective, the syndicate’s “entertainer,” one J. Allan Smith, bought the Mayor’s $10,000 letter of credit. Next day the Mayor sailed for Europe on a junket which proved so costly that Mr. Smith had to settle an overdraft of $3,000\. Decrying “innuendoes” and “half-truths,” Senator Hastings explained that through Senator Bernard L. Downing he had paid Mr. Smith for the letter of credit. But he could produce no receipts, and Senator Downing is now dead. Who financed Mayor Walker’s sundry private car trips through the country during his seven years of office, Senator Hastings did not reveal. But he did say that he considered himself responsible for a $2,008.34 debt, still unpaid, to Pullman Co. for the chartered car in which he and his dapper friend dashed out to get in on California’s Mooney Case last winter. As a prelude to his defense, Mayor Walker went to Brooklyn to speak before the Women’s Division of the Flatbush Democratic Club. On his way to the rostrum, roundly cheered, he stopped to kiss Mrs. Alfred Emanuel Smith, Brooklyn Boss John H. McCooey’s wife, Club Leader Mary F. O’Malley and his sister. “Any man that cannot take it,” said he, “does not belong in politics in these times. . . . Some men will wreck anything, sacred or otherwise, for public preferment. . .” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6767029/states-cities-scandals-of-new-york-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6767029/states-cities-scandals-of-new-york-2/"},"headline":"STATES & CITIES: Scandals of New York (30 May 1932)","datePublished":"1932-05-30T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-21T04:11:12.566Z","description":"Scandals of New York (Cont'd) After a year of skunk-flushing in New York City's political woods, Counsel Samuel Seabury of the Legislature's investigation into municipal corruption last...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6767029/states-cities-scandals-of-new-york-2/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6767029/states-cities-scandals-of-new-york-2/","name":"STATES & CITIES: Scandals of New York (30 May 1932)"}}]}] ```